


Multitudes (& Other Stories)

by theheadandthekin



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10087325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheadandthekin/pseuds/theheadandthekin
Summary: A collection of Ichabbie ficlets originally posted on Tumblr during Season 3.Each chapter is standalone. There is A LOT OF ANGST.





	1. The Gift of the Magi

He had not had time to grieve, to process the Lieutenant’s sacrifice, before Agent Sophie Foster and her team stormed the ruins Pandora had been using as her lair.

Master Corbin and Miss Jenny, still unconscious, were given first aid.

He was surrounded and slammed to the ground with a knee against his back.

He could hear an agent calling for a back-up medical response, stuttering through GPS coordinates and a physical description of their location. He hoped Master Corbin and Miss Jenny would be all right. He needed them to be all right.

“You are being detained in connection with the disappearance of an FBI agent.” Agent Foster hissed as the zip ties closed tight around his wrists. “You’re coming with us. Not that you have a choice.”

* * *

“What would you sacrifice, _Witness,_ to have her returned to your _spoiled_ and _polluted_ world?”

He scoffed. “As though _you_ could bring her back. As though you’d be _willing.”_

“I am a god. While my power remains weakened, there is little I cannot do, Witness.”

The tall man who had materialized in his cell cocked his head and narrowed his eyes in appraisal.

After a long moment, he hummed. “Your freedom shall be an acceptable price. Perhaps this tragic world will prove useful. I will not need to forge your chains myself.”

Crane stood defiant.  “And in exchange you will bring her back to _this_ world, alive, whole, unharmed, and her memories intact.”

“Yes. And although I have only inhabited this realm a month, I appreciate the irony of _your_ imprisonment in this … _facility_ and _my_ freedom to move untouchable throughout it. It is _disgraceful_ what your people have done to those humans made in the image of _gods.”_

* * *

The judge pounded the gavel and listed off the charges. Conspiracy to commit terrorism. Conspiracy to kidnap a federal agent. Kidnapping of a federal agent.

“The United States finds the defendant, Ichabod Crane, guilty on all charges. Sentencing to follow.”

* * *

“You have a visitor, Grace Abigail.”

Iset nodded over her shoulder, toward the rear of the chamber. Abbie turned to follow her gaze.

“ _You!”_

 _“_ Calm yourself, Witness.” He strode in, red cape billowing behind him. “I have arrived to take you back to your world.”

“Why? Why now?”

“Your fellow Witness has made a mighty sacrifice for you.”

“No. _No._ Tell me what he’s done.”

“You will learn soon enough.”

Anger and terror burned hot in her chest. “I won’t go unless you tell me what you’ve done to him.”

He crossed his arms, towering over her. “I’ve done nothing to him and he is unharmed. But you do not have a choice in this matter. While it’s unusual to steal someone _out_ of the Underworld, I will do it if you do not come freely. _Without_ explanation of _his_ generosity.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“What reason would I have to lie?”

“Seriously?”

Iset stood from her throne and descended the stairs to stand beside Abbie.

“I must cut in … someone must pay for my hospitality. I do not tend to intruders out of goodness. What price would you pay?”

It was not clear to whom she was speaking, Abbie or The Mummy, but it was clear the latter assumed it was him, and he turned his attention to the goddess. “I shall give you nothing, Iset. I can destroy your temple here with a mere thought.”

“She, too, sacrificed much for him. She deserves a _gift_ in return. Perhaps that would be payment enough.”

“I took an oath to return her unharmed.”

Abbie broke in. “Maybe you all can talk about this like I’m in the room?”

“Knowledge will not harm her. It is the greatest gift we can give to any mortal, is it not? Although it is a heavy burden for them to bear.”

“Whatever. Fine. I’m not going to bargained over and you’re making me antsy. If this gift or whatever gets me back _,_ I’ll take it.” They looked at her in surprise. “Just get on with it.”

“I am sorry for this, Witness. Some gains are losses,” The Hidden One said as he raised his golden sickle to her forehead.

“Yeah, I’ll deal with you later,” she managed to croak out before succumbing to blackness.

* * *

They materialized in front of the federal courthouse in White Plains.

There was a sick, heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, she just _knew.  
_

“The Witnesses … we’re …” she panted.

“Yes. Now let me escort you inside.”

* * *

The judge pounded the gavel and listed off the charges. Conspiracy to commit terrorism. Conspiracy to kidnap a federal agent. Kidnapping of a federal agent.

The burning anger, the terror, crackled again in her chest. She thought she might be crying, but was unsure. She couldn’t feel her own skin, like the air had the resistance of water.

“The United States finds the defendant, Ichabod Crane, guilty on all charges. Sentencing to follow.”

She should have cried out, sprinted across the gallery and vaulted the bar. She should have pleaded directly to the judge, that it was all in error. She should have …

“There’s nothing you can do, Witness. No one can hear you. This is his sacrifice.”

* * *

She was pushing frantically toward the front of the gallery even as the judge announced the court’s adjournment.

He had to know she was there. He _had_ to. And not just to assure him of the possibility of an appeal. Of a hopeful resolution. Of her presence as living proof of his innocence. No, she needed him to _see her._

“Look at me, look at me,” she chanted under her breath. He _had_ to know.

Flanked by three armed agents, he turned to look back at the courtroom.

“I’m here. I will fix this,” she mouthed, hoping he could read her lips, read her expression.

She saw his jaw clench as he bit the inside of his cheek, his gaze heavy on her.

“Lieutenant.” Even though she couldn’t hear his voice, the word was unmistakable on his lips.

But she wasn’t sure about what followed, his beard and the angle obscuring the movement of his mouth. She wasn’t sure if he really said it, or if it was a figment of her imagination. There was no chance to clarify, to be sure, to prompt him to repeat it, because the officers were pushing him roughly past the bench.

“You are not wrong, Witness.”

She looked up and blinked, unable to keep the tears from gathering on her lashes.


	2. Flawless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missing scene from 3x05

“Effervescent” tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. It wasn’t _really_ what he meant. He’d taken in her ridiculous dress—nothing at all like what a woman of his time would have worn—and his brain had gone from ruffles, to flounces, to froth, to bubbles, to _effervescence_ in a split second. “Ruffly,” “flouncy,” and “frothy” were all rude, he knew, and he’d just … disembarked at the next best thing that had come to mind.

Her pleased look made him regret the compliment just a little. Certainly he enjoyed the attention, but her enthusiasm was a just a little too on the nose. Still, despite the shiny petticoats and slightly overbearing manner, she was sweet. Sweet and pretty and helpful and … not really what he was interested in.

And, yet, for whatever reason, the Lieutenant was encouraging him to _just go with it._ A little flirting, intentional or not, wasn’t _really_ going to hurt.

When was the last time he’d been able to make a girl giggle, besides? With a promise to bowl with her later—was that a euphemism, he wondered?—he topped off his tet-a-tet with Miss Zoe with a bow simply to draw one more soft giggle out of her.

Moving back to their lane, he stole a quick glance at the Lieutenant’s bare legs draped over the vinyl bench. Her bare _thighs._ The “shorts” she was wearing were little more than undergarments.

Of course, he couldn’t see her backside, the way she was sitting, but he didn’t need to see it. It was already seared into his memory.

_No, Ichabod._ He turned his eyes toward Miss Jenny and Master Corbin, away from the glorious expanse of skin his partner had on display. _Good fences._

But looking away, half-listening to Miss Jenny’s teasing, didn’t stop the rush of words that again flooded his increasingly debauched mind. Words that had been like a steady stream in his thoughts—though bright, utterly unspeakable—since she had descended the stairs in their home earlier that evening. He could not burden her with them, but he could not imagine any of them befitting any other form on earth. And yet they _still_ seemed inadequate for her. Surely part of her had to know?

She was saying something about Miss Zoe, but he could only focus on the plays of neon lights on the soft curves of her lips, her neck, her breasts, her waist, her hips.

The words danced through his head, unsaid.

Comely.

Exquisite.

Transcendent.

Divine.

_Flawless._


	3. Untitled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08

Seven times … seven times in the past 36 hours, it’d been on the tip of his tongue.

It was a need, like nothing he’d ever felt, that bore a pressing sense of abject terror at the thought of _not_ saying it.

But he failed. Seven times.

In the woods, when victory over the berserkers had given her mood a flirty lift before everything went well and truly to hell. 

Later, that evening, when she’d wrapped her arms around him and let him hold her against his chest, far more intimately than they’d embraced in so very long.

The next morning, when she’d smiled sadly at him as he poured her coffee into a travel mug.

Waiting for Master Corbin to retrieve the car while they waited at the curb, the ridiculous ‘toga’ party still raging behind them. He clutched the the heavy book they’d stolen with one hand and, with the other, clutched her tiny hand.

In the tunnels, trailing behind a few meters, laden with weaponry, she stopped and looked up at him, furrowing her lovely brow. _You okay, Crane?_

When she asked about their odds one final time, and he wanted so much to reassure her, despite the knotting of his own gut, and make up for stupidly saying _care_ instead of _love._ Kneeling before her, he ground his teeth at her _come what may._

In the ruins, when the words drummed through his head, louder and louder, and all his traitor tongue would allow was _don’t._

And then she was gone. And all his chances alongside her. _  
_

Each time she had acted almost like she knew what was coming. And each time she deflected and disappeared back into herself.

_Joe, me, Jenny …_

_Sorry, I’m beat._

_Look, Danny called me in early._

_There’s Joe._

_Think that that old book will be useful?  
_

_Ready to fight some bad guys, Crane?_

_Take care of each other._

They’d both been too afraid. And now …

He fell to his knees before the tree, the hard stone surely to leave bruises, and the burning bile rose in his throat. He’d been wrong to think it would be a burden to her, wrong to put his fears of her rejection ahead of her needs; she _deserved_ to know. She deserved the choice. She deserved everything.

He was a coward and a fool, besides. He had failed her.


	4. Five-Minute Fic

He was certain he was not meant to hear this.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Abs?” Jenny’s raised voice filtered—clear as a bell—up the stairs and into the hallway. The front door slammed closed.

“Jenny, stop. Please. It’s for the best. I don’t have _time_ right now.” Abbie replied, more muffled than her sister, but still audible in the otherwise quiet house.

He should have moved, continued down the stairs to make tea, but his curiosity rooted him just off the landing.

“Seriously?” Something hit the hardwood floor downstairs. “You think pushing him off on other women is _for the best_?” 

“So–how’re you and Joe working out?”

“This isn’t about me and Joe. You. Crane. When exactly are you going to stop denying the fact that you’re in love with him and, I don’t know, do something about it?” 

His heart fluttered—and dropped straight to his stomach. Oh, he was _absolutely_ certain he was not meant to hear this.

There was a long pause, and in the stillness, he feared his panicked intake of breath would give him away.

It was Jenny who continued. “There’re no rewards without risks.” 

“But I don’t think he feels the same way.”

“Are you _blind_? Of course he does.”

“I am not his type, Jenny. You _know_ that. Anyway, way too complicated.”

_How could she not know?_ He thought. But he tucked this new little piece of knowledge away, stepped with heavy footfalls to the stairs, and called down his greetings to the two sisters—doing a poor job of hiding the optimism ringing in his voice.


	5. Multitudes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-3x08

The knowledge comes all at once, a jumble of images and feelings. No uncovering, no _learning_.

It all simply is.

She simply _knows. She_ simply _is.  
_

There’s a long sword through his guts, fire at her feet, a hot, bloated wound traveling up his leg and a fever that takes his senses.

There are the spasms of poisoning, brackish water filling her lungs, a blackness pushing hard around, against, her face and neck.

There’s blood running over animal skins, coarse woven textiles. Soaking into wool. Traversing creases of silk in tiny red rivers.

Mud. Stone. Animals. Shit. Sweat. Flesh and blood and salt.

So many deaths.

Hers. His.

_Theirs._

* * *

They’re standing outside a tent, grains of sand rolling between the flat of her sandals and the skin of her toes. In the desert, the night is breezy and solid dark, save the impossible number of stars scattered across the black above. 

He holds her, whispers in her ear a blasphemy about the infinitude of those same stars and the wash of brighter light that rends the sky down the middle. 

He promises her the same forever as the heavens.

* * *

His weight presses down on her, on mattresses of cedar bark, on bare floors of dirt and rodent dung, on wooden pallets and feather ticks. On rugs and furs and leaves.

And she rises to him. Always.

* * *

His weight becomes cold–a corpse rolled off the back of a horse. Fallen somewhere away from her, and in her grief, deep and raw, she pulls the knife off his waistband and drags it across her stomach, up her arms, opening her veins.  

She sees the pain on _his_ face as blood pools around her pelvis, their child stillborn. She sees him choose to follow her–before she’s even gone.

He promises her they’ll find one another again.

* * *

When she collapses on the bank, the ribbon of gray water bending away into the mist, she doesn’t swallow down the pain. She lets it tumble forth in a great, wracking sob.

The shades don’t hear her, don’t see her, don’t notice. 

The only thing that does is her own reflection staring back at her from the river.

It is witness enough.

Now she _knows._

* * *

She hears him mutter the command as she collapses in his arms. She hears his voice in dozens of languages she suddenly understands. Sometimes it’s one word, sometimes two or three. but they all mean the same thing.

_Don’t._

As she takes the blow meant for him. Rides off the edge of the cliff. Feels iron clamp around her wrists. Lays her head on the block.

As she walks out of the land of the living, breaking his promise for him.

_Don’t._


	6. People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x06--mention of Danabbie (looking back? ew. why.)

Danny. Danny liked to be right. He wasn’t righteously bombastic about it like Crane, but he would positively glow with the smug satisfaction of _knowing._ But just because he liked to be right didn’t mean he always was. She _could_ see what she did to people.

It was damn presumptive of him to think he knew something about herself that she didn’t.

And she knew that she was pushing two men, who each loved her in their own way, away right now–drawing lines, erecting _fences,_ with both of them. No yours and mine … just friends. 

And she knew why, too. However she felt about them otherwise, she didn’t trust either of them. Not enough, anyway.

Danny because he was in love with his career and stuck on a version of Abbie that _wasn’t_ her, an Instagram-memory of a beach cottage, of all things, so far removed from her real life, her real self, it might as well have been another person altogether. If he wanted her, if somehow they could work out, despite the professional complications, he would have to fall for _her._ The sister. The lost child. The liar. The protector. The soldier. The Witness. 

The abandoned.

If the trying events of last year had taught her anything, it was to not even _think_ about trusting a man, fueled by tempting memories from different times and different circumstances, who couldn’t accept a woman as she was, rather than as he wanted her to be.

So she’d do her best, be a good agent, have his back. Shield him from the supernatural bullshit. 

But as long as he wanted to define her and not _know_ her–and she wondered whether he’d even stick around if he did–she couldn’t let anything more happen between them. He might be gorgeous, but she could resist. She would _not_ deal with being worshipped as an idol.

She’d try to tell him. Maybe he’d figure out how to listen one of these days.

And all the ways Danny did not know her, Crane did. Despite that, despite knowing her _soul deep_ , he loved her. He was terrible at hiding it.

Yet despite knowing her, loving her, he _still_ left her. Made her stand, again, as the girl, the woman, abandoned. It wasn’t his departure itself–that she understood–but the creep of days, then weeks, then months that passed with nothing.

It had felt permanent.

And then when he returned, his cowardly bullshit of shielding himself behind their ordained duties as Witnesses, Napalutu, or whatever other crap the universe was going to throw at them couched every bit of their relationship in the language of destiny. So much so that she couldn’t help but consider the possibility that Crane looked at her the way he did because she was his fellow Witness, not because she was a woman of her own worth (and lots of it) and her own choices.

She wasn’t going to wait around for him to have that epiphany on his own. So she pushed him away, lied to him with some nonsense about Zoe being a “good one,” despite knowing nothing about her except that Crane liked her attention and she was into his whitewashed history, kept him firmly at a distance, because she would be no man’s default. No man’s fated partner. Certainly no existentially insecure man’s fated partner.

She was not about to bear that burden. She deserved to be chosen. 

The thing was, she didn’t trust that he _would_ choose her. Not when all was said and done and he had his shit together and _could_ be with her.

Because he hadn’t _before,_ when the stakes weren’t just their hearts, but the fate of the world.

So she couldn’t just let them fall silently into bed one night, taking away the necessary opportunity for him–for her–to _choose,_ to demonstrate to her through his actions, not inactions, not accidents, not empty words, his love and fidelity.

Maybe they’d _both_ fuck it up. Danny stuck in their past, Crane stuck in their prophecy. Maybe she just needed to text the guy she’d met on the train who made documentaries. Or the banker who chatted her up in Starbucks. Or the doctor she’d just met at the car dealership, waiting for her windows to be repaired. No complications.


	7. Breakfast

He wasn’t sure how he expected it to go, or why he chose _that_ moment. It had seemed … right. And, certainly, a part of him _had_ expected her silence, her downcast eyes–her rejection. But he hadn’t been prepared for how much, in that moment, it wounded him.

He silently, numbly, folded his belongings into a large duffel. Some of it he’d have to come back for. He could do without for a few days, a week or two, giving her necessary space.

“Crane.” He startled at the sound of her voice and glanced over to see her hovering outside the doorway. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I think it best, Lieutenant,” he said, continuing to move around the room, “That I find another lodging.”

“Stop.” He didn’t.

“Crane, _stop._ ” Her words were too calm. Too calm for the painful swirl of dread and horror and shame and love that churned through him.

“Abbie.” He tried to swallow the crack that broke the middle of her name, his back turned. “You don’t need to say anything.”  

“From the looks of this, I think I do.” She was swift in crossing the room, sliding in front of him, laying her hands on the books he held in his. “Please. Stop.”

Unable to look at her face–he could not further demean himself by letting loose the sob that threatened to boil out of his chest–he watched her hands slowly shift. Shift until her right pinky was hooked over his thumb.

“Crane, you’ve got to give a woman a few minutes to process when you tell her you love her in the middle of making breakfast.”

“Lieutenant … allow me some dignity.” There was no keeping the watery wobble from his speech now.

“Shut up. I didn’t expect to face this when I woke up this morning, you know? I was thinking about work and Jenny’s recovery and …. That doesn’t mean …. I’m _terrified.”_

Did that mean …?

He hoped he was reading her correctly, addled as he was by the live prospect of losing the dearest thing to him in the world. Because he’d so stupidly _told_ her so. He hoped he wasn’t further overstepping. He hoped she wouldn’t flee or turn away in disgust.

He gently lifted the books out from under her hands and, difficult as it was, raised his eyes to meet hers.

God, she was _smiling._ Full and radiant and beautiful.

How was it possible to love another so much?

But she didn’t give him time to think. As suddenly as she had appeared in his room, in his life, in his heart, she was pulling his face down toward hers and he was wrapping his arms around her and he had to wonder whether this was some ghastly trick because she could not be–

“There’s no way in _hell_ I’m letting you leave again.”

“Abbie …” He whispered onto her lips.

“Bring it on.” And she pushed up onto her toes to close the final distance between them.


	8. The Weft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU of 3x08

She was taunting them, rambling about the tree and the underworld–taking the opportunity, it seemed, to give him the lesson in history she’d promised him.

He could feel the Lieutenant’s taut, agitated energy by his side.

Then, without warning, there was a _break,_ like a skip in a video, a sudden drop in an aircraft, like one reality broke, jagged, into another.

Pandora’s eyes were now on Abbie. And she was much closer.

“Do you know what it means, my brave one? No, of course not. You had to rely on him to translate your own language.” She sighed. “ _So_ much you must rely on him to know.”

The Lieutenant tensed further. Pandora and her lover had Jenny, and he knew every moment of delay pushed Abbie further toward her own breaking.

Her voice was crisp and high. “Just because I–”

Pandora cut her off. “He hasn’t told you everything. Does he wish to enlighten you, or shall I?”

He could feel it, see it, bearing down on him–much like the Horseman with his ax–the truth of their history, _their future,_ charging forward, running down his last bit of–

“No?” She cut into his thoughts, and frowned slightly. “Hmm, you surprise me. And to think we all once knew one another _so well.”_

“Crane …” Abbie breathed beside him.

He could feel it pressing, his own terror in the face of their enemy wielding this most unexpected weapon. More monstrous than any demon, more brutal. If she thought it were _only_ this divine, preordained circumstance, she would fight it until her dying breath. She would not be bound this way. There was nothing else he could do, nothing except to _say it._

Before Pandora hollowed it of substance, meaning.

“You were once like me, like us,” she smiled, and gestured to the man–god–lounging on the steps. “You lived once, and now you live again. Forgive him, he could only guess the right words. You were, you are–”

He shut her out as she spoke, turned his face to his partner. There was no choice; her rejection could damn him later. 

“I love you. _I love you,_ Grace Abigail Mills.”

He didn’t hear the next words Pandora said because Abbie’s breathing hitched, her lips murmured his name. His raised his free hand to cup her face, needing to touch her, needing to block the other woman.

He dipped his head so his eyes were level with hers. _They_ were all that mattered.

“I care not one wit about prophecies, about tablets and gods, about past lives. Any of it. _I,_ Ichabod Crane, love _you,_ Grace Abigail Mills. _”_

Her wide eyes searched his a moment and then she nodded, just once. Pandora was reciting something in the background. But _she_ wasn’t looking away, she wasn’t flinching. 

So he pressed his lips to hers.

And that was when the ceiling began to crumble, stone raining down around them.


	9. Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08 AU

He leaves a small piece of his humanity behind in his quest to find her.

She leaves a small piece of hers behind in the netherworld.

They both do unknowable things in their separate odysseys.

When he finds her, she’s too angry to speak. When he pulls her back into the mortal world, _then_ she finds her voice–and tells him to fuck off. 

He tells her to make him. 

They spend the following hours circling one another like wild animals, caged in their home. Saying savage things, cruel, aching truths. Slicing at one another–deep cuts to leave lasting scars.

But the one that opens both of them to the bone is the one that finally falls from her lips, quiet but steady, a rapier rather than ax: “I wish you’d never come into my life, never woken up in this century, never screwed _everything_ up for me.”

“Well, I wish I’d never fallen in love with you,” comes his quick reply.

She laughs, raw, bitterly. “Yeah, that, too.”

They sit in silence for a very long time, her pressed into the corner of the sofa, him wedged into the armchair.

“Did I … Lieutenant … you love me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

It’s a tiny thing, but so terribly human. To love, to lose, to love again. To hate the very fact of it. 

Bleeding, hurt, he stands, stretches his hand out. No risk remains. “Are you going to tell me to fuck off again?”

“No.” She looks to the ceiling, blinks.

“Come. We’ve found one another. Let’s recover what we’ve lost along the way.”

“It’s not that easy.” But she takes his hand anyway.

He runs his thumb along her knuckles. “No, ‘tis quite hard. But it’s a start.”


	10. Winter Wonderland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christmas themed

Jenny pulls the Christmas Eve shift at Mabie’s, so she, Crane, and Joe decide they should keep her sister company until closing. 

It’s a chilly night, with flurries in the forecast, but Jenny’s promises of “bottomless _festive_ drinks on the house”–which apparently means a hell of a lot of eggnog and punch–prompt Crane to suggest _walking_ into town.

“No designated driver needed. We may imbibe as we wish,” he reasons.

“Right, uh, that’s what _taxis_ are for. Also, isn’t Joe driving Jenny’s truck? We can get a ride.”

He pouts–actually _pouts,_ rounding his eyes and sticking out his bottom lip–like he really thinks he can convince her to walk a mile and half– _three_ , round trip–in the dead of winter when there isn’t even a demon to fight.

Nope. Not happening.

“It’s going to snow, Crane! I’m not walking in the damn snow.”

His look turns mischievous. “ _If_ you walk with me, I will make it worth your while.”

“What the hell does that mean? Sorry–winter, dark, ice, brrr–you gotta do better than some vague _quid pro quo,_ like you can extract an agreement from me _to freeze_ with some kind of ransom.”

“Ah, but I _can._ If you walk with me–there and back–I will wear the so-called ‘ugly’ sweater you and Miss Jenny gifted to me last year, which Joe was so kind to box up from the cabin. With _jeans._ Otherwise, it and they go in the trash, and you shan’t ever bother to dream of getting me into such absurd articles of modern clothing again.”

Crane hasn’t been in jeans since … what a _bastard._

“Okay. Full 21st century? Parka? Boots? Whole nine yards?”

“Full 21st century. Do we have a deal?” 

She nods.

She’s going to regret this, she knows. When they’re stumbling home drunk at 1AM, in the bitter cold, snowflakes clinging to her hair–and, Jesus, _melting_ , shoes slipping on the brick sidewalks, she’s going to be _mad as hell._ But he’s going to be suffering, too, and that gives her a little thrill. _Plus_ –

He’s already headed up the stairs when he calls down to her, breaking into her building ball of irritation. “Remember, Lieutenant, that I recall how much you simply _itch_ to get me out of my usual garments.”

* * *

They end up well north of tipsy at Mabie’s. Well, she does. And she can only assume her partner is in the same boat because he has gotten really handsy.

 _Really_ handsy.

And she knows without a doubt that she’s had a few too many because she’s absolutely letting him. 

That, and she actually falls off her barstool in a fit of real, honest laughter when her sister and Joe–who can’t hold a tune to save his life–perform a gender-reversed duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” One that ends with a whoa-okay-guys-you’re-in-public kiss.

After she recovers from her slip, he pulls her off her stool and stands her between his legs, between him and bar, and whispers against her ear, “You must take care, Lieutenant. I shall steady you here until you regain your bearings.”

She should wriggle away, but it’s actually kind of nice to be held up. Kind of nice to be in his arms. Kind of nice to be able to admit it–well, with the help of Jenny’s Holiday Punch Special. “Sure.”

And it’s nice she doesn’t have to _look_ at him. Because God knows what she might do at this point.

Jenny slides back behind the bar and raises an eyebrow at them both. “Ready for your turn at the mic, Abs? Cue up Mariah Carey?”

“ _Funny._ Think I’m good.”

Joe chimes in from the other side of Crane. “Don’t think she needs to ask for it, Jen.”

“To what are you referring, Master Corbin?” 

“They’re just meddling,” Abbie half-chokes out, face _burning_. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I _am_ familiar with the gift-giving customs of this time. Is there something you want for Christmas you haven’t yet asked for?” He runs a hand down her arm, all the way down until it’s covering her own. Then, _then,_ he laces his fingers through hers and presses her hand down onto the bartop.

Sweet baby Jesus. What the _fuck_ is he doing?

Jenny looks pointedly at their hands and, after a quick glance to Joe, begins whisking away their empty glasses.

“Okay, it’s late; party’s over. You guys should go ahead and go. Joe’ll get me home, and we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, anyway.”

* * *

There’s a dusting of snow on on the asphalt when they head out into the parking lot, and big, fluffy flakes catch in the streetlight and in the headlights of the few cars passing on the road.

He takes her hand again, engulfing her tiny mitten in his stupidly large glove, and leads her to the sidewalk.

She’s a lot less irritated by this walking thing that she thought she would be.

“Miss Jenny was a bit liberal with the free libations.” 

She presses into his side, mostly to steady herself, but also because he’s warm. And she wants his warmth. “No kidding.”

He starts humming–the distinctive minor of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”–while they make their way down the street, back toward their neighborhood. 

Most of the houses have kept their Christmas lights on, and the whole thing looks like a goddamn holiday card. It feels cozy.

 _She_ feels cozy.

“Hey, know any modern Christmas songs?”

“One cannot escape them. Do you wish for me to serenade you?” 

“Missed you taking a turn at karaoke tonight. And you still _owe_ me. As good as that stupid sweater looks on you, it is _cold_ out here.”

Great, good job–just keep fucking _talking._

“If you insist.” He lets go of her hand and instead drapes his arm across her back, gripping her side and tucking her against his torso. “ _All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth–”_

“Oh, my God, _stop._ Stop.” She pushes at him lightheartedly, not really wanting to break contact.

“You’re right, it’s a horrible song. An assault on the ears and a disgrace to music.”

“Yeah, try again.”

They walk maybe half a block before he clears his throat.

“Need a key?”

“I’ve got it,” he says simply, and then continues in a soft version of his warm baritone, the same voice he uses when he’s singing to himself and cleaning. _“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland.”_

He moves her in front of him, so both arms are wrapped around her ribs, and keeps walking her forward. She giggles. Whatever the hell is happening, she _is_ happy.

Thanks for the booze, Jenny.

She feels a small, quick point of pressure on the top of her hat, then he keeps singing.

_“Gone away is the bluebird, here to stay is the new bird. He sings a love song, as we go along, walking in a winder wonderland.”_

And she, drunken, grinning idiot that she is, joins him.

_“In the meadow, we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is Parson Brown. He’ll say: are you married? We’ll say: no man, but you can do the job while you’re in town.”_

He stops them, keeping her in his arms, pulling her impossibly closer. The snow is falling faster now. 

_“Later on, we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire, to face unafraid, the plans that we ma–”_

“Crane.” She shivers, head to toe, and it shakes her enough to _finally_ get a semblance of a hold on herself. 

He sighs and she feels him rest his chin on the crown of her head. “Abbie.”

“We’re drunk as shit.”

“I am well aware.”

“We need to–”

“It’s not the drink, Abbie.”

She wishes she could see his face, but she’s not brave enough to turn around. Brave enough to run into the Underworld, not brave enough to see the way he must be looking at her. Not even as sloshed as she is.

“I had hoped very much that we would find you before Christmas.”

She reaches up and brushes the snow off the sleeves of his jacket, coating the edges of her mittens with it. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because the darkest days of winter are best spent with those we love.”


	11. Heart of Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08 AU

It’s startling, how he can see both sisters in Ezra Mills’ face. His Lieutenant inherited her father’s eyes; her sister, their father’s mouth. (He knows from the few photographs of Lori Mills scattered about their home that it’s exactly reversed with their mother, although Miss Jenny’s brows–like his own–are some sort of wildcard inheritance.)

“You must be Ichabod Crane.”

He takes the hand extended to him, feeling much the way he had around General Washington: deferential and green next to a man older, taller, broader, formidable in a way he can’t dream of ever quite mustering himself. 

“I am. Welcome. It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise. Jennifer’s told me a lot about you.”

“Of course; good things, I hope.” And it makes him nervous, just a little, to be judged by Abbie’s father, despite their non-relationship, so much so, he even put on modern trousers and sweater for the visit. “I am grateful you traveled to Sleepy Hollow, although I sorely wish it were under much happier circumstances. Please, come in.”

He takes the older gentleman’s coat and ushers him into the living room. 

“Been a long time since I’ve been ‘sir’ed quite so sincerely, Mr. Crane.”

“Ichabod, please.” He knows not to offer him a beer or whiskey, although he would rather like one of either for himself, to calm his nerves. “Would you care for something to drink–water? Tea? Fresh coffee?”

“No need, son.” He smiles, and Crane becomes immediately self-conscious of his absurd obsequiousness. This man’s the Lieutenant’s flesh and blood; he won’t be impressed by a fool. “Let’s just sit down, since I’m afraid I can’t stay long.” 

They settle, then, into a more natural exchange, which leads quickly to the topic of Abbie’s absence. Crane’s sorrow is still aching and raw, and her father’s eerie, compassionate detachment twists in a discomfiting contrast. 

“She should not have been taken from the world like that.” 

“I know your loss is fresher than mine, Ichabod … I’ve already lost and grieved both my daughters, and I only knew them as small children. I’m here because I’ve brought something with me for _you_ that might help. First, though, I’m going to tell you why I left my girls, so you understand.”

He _is_ curious; truth be told, the harsh, vengeful parts of him want to demand an answer from Abbie’s father about the trauma he visited upon her. But it’s none of his business, especially when both Abbie and Miss Jenny have seemed to push past it. Truly not. “Mr. Mills–”

“Ezra.”

“Ezra, I neither require nor expect–” 

“I don’t care what you require or expect, because you _need_ to know this. Because I was hunted and I had no choice, mixed up in things like the three of you are because of who _I_ am–and I was told, by people who would make good on the threat, to leave them, forget about them, or they would die. I can’t be forgiven for it, and I sure as hell don’t want any of that from you, but _you_ need to know that they were my _babies. Are_ my babies.

“I would have gone to the ends of the earth for my precious daughters if I’d been able. As it turned out, all I needed to do was disappear. But I didn’t forget about them. That day … my baby Grace Abigail, holding her sister …. She was such a fierce, beautiful little thing.” 

He sighs and leans back against the cushions. “Those things haven’t changed, have they?”

“No,” Crane says quietly, bouncing his fingers on the arm of the chair. “She remains both beautiful and ferocious. And much more. A force to be reckoned with, for certain.”

“Do you love her enough to leave her, leave your _family,_ if this war you’re fighting requires that you do it?”

“How do you–”

“You’re jumpy as a junebug. When my step-daughter brought her fiancé home for Thanksgiving the first time, man, he was just about crawling out of his skin.” He chuckles, and reaches over, plucking a framed photograph off the end table and studying it a moment. “And you’re looking at her in this picture like she’s hung the moon.”

Crane doesn’t protest, doesn’t even feel the need to anymore. His feelings are a fact, and he might as well deny the sun rises and sets.

“I won’t survive without her. And I dare not even consider–” He cannot allow himself to think of the idea of a family, a family with _her_.

Ezra grunts, and replaces the photo. “No, you won’t. And neither will the world, for that matter.” 

He’s kept his grief in check, has been able to go longer and longer periods without breaking down entirely, but at the renewed thought of losing Abbie permanently, of a thousand futures fading away, his throat constricts and his eyes grow hot.

The older man digs in his pocket and pulls out a small wooden box and hands it to Crane. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that. This is what I brought for you. Open it.” 

Crane gathers himself as best he can and does his bidding. Inside the box is a solid, vaguely heart-shaped piece of gold, with a bright red stone set into the center. 

“This is a … tyet?”

“It’s the Heart of Iset, the goddess. Isis, as you probably know her … but that’s a word that’s unfortunately taken on a different meaning these days.”

“Ah. Like the Shard of Anubis.”

“It’s my daughter’s birthright, and it should open the tree right up for you, so you can retrieve her. It’ll protect you both on your journey there and back, and after that. I’m sorry I’m just getting it to you. It took me forever to find it again in all my junk after Jennifer contacted me.”

He instinctively trusts Ezra Mills, but he isn’t willing to take risks with supernatural objects of unknown power, not after the Shard, as eager as he is to go use the Heart immediately. “Birthright? Is there something more I need to know about this artifact?”

“I only know what I’ve been told, and that’s not much. They don’t come with instruction manuals.”

“Mr. Mills–Ezra–please, if there is something I should know about this trinket, I need to know it.” 

“It’s passed down, protected through generations–my great-great grandmother, to my great grandfather, to my grandmother. It’s not a gift for ordinary occasions, and … we should just leave it at that, since this is not one of those intended occasions. But it’s powerful magic that is _my_ first-born daughter’s to use, and yours to use, too.”

Crane picks up the Heart, turns it over in his fingers, carefully avoiding the inset gem. The gold is pure enough that its soft surface is scored and scratched from use.

“Who are you, Ezra?”

He looks him dead in the face. “I’m a father.”

It’s obviously not the whole answer, but it’s the one that matters.

“Thank you for bringing this.”

Ezra stands, and Crane stands with him, carefully replacing the Heart in its case. “I wish I could do more for you both. Maybe someday.”

Crane opens his mouth to reply, but is silenced by a clap on the shoulder. “Take care of my baby, son. Don’t fail her.”


	12. Starbucks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holiday fluff

If Ryan had to hear one more “what a shame, they’re so plain this year!” exclamation about the red holiday cups from a blonde woman with a Louis Vuitton wallet, he was going to spit in someone’s venti, sugar-free, skim, no-whip, extra-hot caramel macchiato.

No, really, he was.

“C’mon, Ryan.” Janelle said, pouring hot soy milk into a sickly sweet crème brûlée latte. “Be _festive!”_

It was actually a slow day, so they had the luxury of gossiping behind the bar and talking shit about their manager, who had, on top of her usual terror, insisted on putting a “A Very She & Him Christmas” on loop all day to celebrate Christmas Eve.

Ryan nudged his coworker when a certain pair of regulars walked in the door. “Hey, J, look who just came in.”

“Oh my God. You know, they are _so_ doing it.”

“No, they’re not. Dude must have the bluest balls in New York. Westchester, _at least._ ”

“I have worked here for _three_ years. They are in here all the time. They were both gone for months, but when they came back … wow. No, they’re _totally_ F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”

“Naw. They _want_ to, but they’re not.”

“Yeah? How do you figure?”

The petite black woman and her tall, scrawny British shadow made it to the register, so he dropped his voice, talking more to the machine than to J.

“He’s got his hands behind his back, like he wants to touch her–but he can’t. He also legit checked out her ass on the way in, but she was clueless.”

“Maybe they’re not into PDA? Or, I dunno, it’s really new?”

“Nope. Watch. She’s gonna touch his arm.” And she does, right on cue. “See how he pulled up all stiff, sort of lifted his chin? Blue. Fucking. Balls.”

“Could be a kink? They could have an S&M thing going? I mean, he dresses _really_ weird.”

“I’m a guy. Just trust me.”

J shrugged. Sandeep set the two orders on the bar and she grabbed them, holding the cups up, side-by-side. “Their orders are so cute. They match! Yep–she always gets a short Americano, and his go-to is a venti white chocolate mocha _.”_

“I think we should give them a nudge. That’s the spirit of giving, right?”

“I _dare_ you to write something about it on their cups.” She thought a moment, measuring out the shots. “If you do, I’ll take your 5AM day-after-Christmas opening and you can have two of my mid-afternoons.” 

“Uh, okay, I’ll take that deal! Where’s the Sharpie?”

J smiled at him brightly over her shoulder. Yeah, he would have done it without anything in return. He knew a little something about standing next to someone all day and itching for something more.

* * *

She pulled out of the Starbucks parking lot and onto the main road. “Those two baristas are so cute. They’re totally into each other.”

“How do you know?”

She fixed him with a look. “You serious? Mr. ‘I-Sensed-Something-More-Than-Professional-Between-You-Two’?”

“Fair enough. I merely … ‘tis simply sometimes difficult to see the differences between a close working relationship and something more.”

Abbie shook her head. “They were all, I don’t know, giggly and flirty.”

“I see.”

“They’re just kids. Hard to keep it in check at that age.”

“Indeed. At any age, truthfully.”

She glanced over at him and smiled softly. “Still want to hit the Archives before Jenny and Joe come over for dinner?”

He hummed an affirmative. Satisfied that the drink had cooled enough to imbibe, he turned the cup around in his hands, but noticed the edge of a word peeking out from under the cardboard sleeve. He slid it off and read the message.

“And the observers become the observed,” he murmured. 

“Huh? What was that?”

“Lieutenant, did you, um, see anything unusual written on your cup?”

“I dunno. I can’t pull the sleeve off while driving, but you can check. Did you?”

“Yes.” He plucked her cup out of the holder.

“Care to elaborate, Crane?”

He bit the inside of his cheek. “It says, verbatim, ‘Have a Merry Christmas and kiss him already’ … followed by three exclamation points.”

“Okay.” She took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed her palm along her thigh. “Yours say the same? Well, reversed … you know what I mean.”

“Oh, more or less.”

She didn’t say anything more about it, and he fiddled nervously with the lid of the coffee as her silence grew longer. 

She pulled up in front of the Archives and threw the car into park. He had a gift for her inside that he needed to retrieve before the holiday, but she jumped out of the car first and met him on the sidewalk.

She held up a finger in a gesture very much like his own.

“Okay, you’re not getting away with being secretive. Show me your cup.”

“Lieutenant …”

“Don’t ‘Leftenant’ me. Show me.”

With her insistence, he had one chance before the moment turned sour. He gently grasped her wrist and turned her gloved hand in his, so he could lace their fingers together.

Stepping closer, he stooped a little to look more directly into her upturned face.

God’s wounds, she was beautiful.

“It said ….” He dropped his voice to a thick whisper, something only she could–would–hear. “It said, ‘Kiss her - and make it a not-so-silent night.’ _Five_ exclamation points.”


	13. Emergency Use Only -- Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08 AU

It occurs to her that the fact her phone _works_ in hell–or whatever the fuck supernatural realm she is in–is really strange. She doesn’t have reception, but the damn thing works. It seems … not quite right that the dead could mess with their iPhones.

She sits down a rock, trying to figure out her bearings–whether she should keep going, wait, turn around–flipping her phone over and over in her hand. She’s just _here._ There’s no welcome party, no River Styx, no creepy ghosts. She feels no danger. Just … _stillness._

Maybe her own personal punishment is an eternity of boredom.

Or regret.

She scrolls through her photo albums, looking for the “waffle” video Crane had watched in 1781. His plaintive “ _don’t”_ still rings in her ears, and she needs to see him, see them, in a simpler, happier time.

But there, as she scrolls, she sees an album entitled “Emergency Use Only.”

The fuck? She did _not_ make that.

She’s curious. And is pretty sure this qualifies as an emergency–even if being plopped down on a boulder in the netherworld doesn’t have quite the urgency she expects from that sort of thing–so she opens the folder.

She half expects it to be a horrible joke from her sister, a bunch of porn or videos of baby elephants.

Instead, there’s a single video, the thumbnail a blurry hand. She touches it, and Crane’s face fills the screen.

It’s fairly recent, though a bit grainy; his hair is short and she can make out his room in her house – _their_ house _,_ she corrects–in the background.

_“Forgive me, Lieutenant, for using your device without your express permission. However, you never did change your passcode. I promise I have read none of your text missives, although you have, as of late, been rather brazen about stealing my phone away and reading mine.  
_

_“Anyway, I am recording this video in the event that we have become separated again. I hope, indeed, that it will not need to be used to convince my past self of our association.  
_

_“I do not know when, if ever, you might be watching this. I do know that since you record or watch videos so rarely on your phone, unlike Miss Jenny, that it is unlikely you’ll even discover this until the need arises, and, regardless, you will heed its label._

_“I hope that, whatever the circumstances, what I am about to say will not be a sentiment you are hearing now for the first time. If it is, you can imagine my most profound regret. And, if we are reunited, I expect you to be quite cross with me over it._

_“I have been, I know, a most disappointing partner. A fool, and far worse. That you continue to allow me into your life, to share a home with you, is a miracle I dare not question. But it is one for which I am most grateful._

_“We have been many things, strangers, partners, friends, roommates, Witnesses–perhaps, if Pandora is to be believed, even across many lifetimes. But, Abbie, you are far more to me than that–you are_ everything.

“ _I love you.”_ His voice breaks on the recording. “ _I love you without reservation, condition, or pretense. And–no–sorry, let me be clearer, so you do not miss my full meaning, as words have so often failed me where you are concerned:  I am madly, passionately in love with you.  
_

_“Abbie, I long for you in ways that are near unspeakable.  
_

_“I am, and will be, ever faithful. Know, too, that if there is even the slightest possibility that we may find one another again, in life, in death, or the worlds in between, I will find you.”_

Dropping her elbows to her knees, she presses the phone to her forehead, and lets go. 

“Goddammit,” she chokes, between sobs. This is her torture, isn’t it? “ _Goddammit.”_


	14. Emergency Use Only -- Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post 3x08 AU

They–Miss Jenny and Master Corbin–have finally left him alone. They’re no sooner out of the driveway than he is swiping his keys off the counter and heading for the Archives, unable to stand a second longer in their cold, quiet, _lifeless_ home.

It has been, without compare, the worst two days of his already quite strange, tragic life.

When he arrives at the Archives, he drops the _The Ynglinga Saga_ she’d given him on top of the thick volume of Masonic lore and goes hunting for Grace Dixon’s journal.

He finds it beside Abbie’s abandoned laptop. 

Her work area looks like she’s simply gone to procure a coffee or sandwiches, a moment only _paused,_ not one that stretches endless into the future, one where she’s _not …_

It adds another, unexpected space to the void rent by her absence.

He must turn his back if he is to work–which they had taken to doing opposite one another once everything had been rearranged–so his usual table will not do; instead, he takes the journal to the chairs near the fireplace.

He knows it by heart, or so he thinks, but perhaps a new look would uncover something useful.

Gingerly lifting the front board, the binding hinges open to reveal several neatly folded leaves of yellow lined paper tucked between pages.

His name, in Abbie’s efficient hand, is on the outermost sheet and he’s unfolding the paper and reading before he can stop himself.

Before he can prepare. Before he can think better of it.

_“Crane -_

_First off, I don’t have your way with words - and I can’t think of the last time I wrote a real letter (lost art, right?) - and I don’t have a lot of time to write this out, so forgive the rough writing. You’re due back soon.  
_

_If you’re reading this, I’m dead or gone - hopefully just gone. I knew this would be the first or second place you went to look to find a way to bring me back, so I stuffed this in here knowing you’d find it sooner rather than later._

_So if that’s what has happened, I’m sorry I had to do what I did. I’m sorry if I couldn’t say goodbye - I’m sorry if I didn’t let you.  
_

_I know what we’re going into, maybe more than you do, since I’ve been doing some research of my own. If our plan fails, I’m going to sacrifice myself to save Jenny. Even if the shard casing doesn’t work, I think I should be able to pull the power from her on my own. Yeah, it’s crazy, but based on some things Pandora said to me - things I’m sorry I haven’t told you - I may just have the ability, and if she and The Mummy Returns can do it, with a little help from Grace’s spells, I think I might be able to actually make it work. I’m not sure what exactly will happen, or how, but it should open the tree/portal thing. If that works as expected, I should be able to take the power I’ve absorbed into the underworld - assuming our working theory about the tree is right. Lots of ifs, but at least I think I can stop anything from going nuclear on Sleepy Hollow.  
_

_I need to save my sister and I will do absolutely anything to make sure that happens. I’m not afraid to die - never have been - and I don’t know whether this will kill me or something worse. I endured the foster system and Purgatory and the 18th century (hello, slavery), and I can handle this. But the toughest part this time? That I have to be prepared to leave you.  
_

_You - of all the people in this world.  
_

_I know you can live without me, that we can live without each other, but that’s not what I’ve wanted, not for a long time. I know why you left, but it hurt so much when you didn’t bother with even a single goddamn text. Even more when you came back acting like the only excuse you had was that fucking tablet, like what we are isn’t more than Witness duties to you, like that big long list of the sacrifices I made for you weren’t personal. Like I’d do all of that for just anyone. And there you were, like you wouldn’t even fight for it._

_I need you to fight for it now. Because sometimes, I come home … and you’re in ~~my~~ our house, Crane. You’re hunched over a book, you’ve got dinner in the oven, a beer or a cup of tea ready to go, and you don’t force me to talk but you’ve got that look like you’ll actually listen if I do … and I feel so normal and protected and I don’t know. I can’t always be an agent and a soldier, a protector, some kind of chosen savior. Sometimes, I have to just be a normal woman, with normal kinds of pain and fear and hope and love, and you’ve figured out how to let me have a little of that.   
_

_Although, frankly, I wish you did more. I have to remind myself that I’m gone if you’re reading this, so I should just state the full truth, right? It’s selfish, but I’m not ever selfish enough, especially when it comes to you. I’m also not a romantic - not at all - but sometimes, I wish you’d just put down whatever book you’re caressing and run your fingers up my spine instead. I wish you‘d, I don’t know, stop lecturing and put your mouth to better use, wake up curled around me after we do a little bit of cultural exchange - you show me how you all did it in 1776. Worship me, atone for leaving me.  
_

_I’ve already given you so much, I wish you’d give me everything. Partners. Equals. All in. I wish …  
_

_You know I don’t let just anyone stroll on in, into my home, my heart, my hopes, dreams, whatever. I let you in because I want you there. I don’t need demons to need_ you _. Even though, God, you’re an annoying, grouchy, selfish, ungrateful bastard, I need you … even though I know the depths you can hurt me to. _I already know. You are my_ greatest weakness.   
_

_Like I said, not really used to writing letters. The professional communication class at Quantico didn’t exactly cover this kind of situation, either. But whatever has actually happened, please don’t do anything stupid, like going to try to get yourself killed. If you can find me, do it. And we’ll figure everything out, whatever mess I’ve just made of our bond, our partnership. If you can’t, then keep fighting. But do more than survive, you know? Get a job, fall in love again, buy a goddamn motorcycle (and a helmet), see this big, crazy 21st century world, make babies. Embrace _it - and know I’d rather be there beside you i_ n all of it, the fighting, the in-between, and whatever happens after, ”_

The end of the sentence and the line after are scribbled _, blackened,_ out _.  
_

_“Just don’t ever forget me. Wherever I am, I won’t forget you.  
_

_Yours,_

_Abbie”_

He wipes a hand over his face, sweeping the tears off his cheeks with his fingers and pinching the bridge of his nose to try to stop the ones that threaten to follow. His attempt to catch his breath turns into a violent choke against the heel of his palm.

No loss he has ever endured– _nothing_ –compares to this. Not Henry. Not Katrina. Not his family. Not his century. Not his own life. 

He can’t fill his lungs, and behind the blur of tears catching on his eyelashes, spots dance across his vision. If he passes out, there’s no one to find him, he thinks absurdly. 

“Crane. Focus.”

He knows it’s a hallucination, knows her voice in his head isn’t real. But he obeys and opens his eyes, trying to bring the words written before him, on the open pages of the journal, back to legibility.

There, he catches Mrs. Dixon’s underlined script:

“ _From Charlotte Amalie on St Thomas–On retrieving those Living Souls who have been Stolen to the Lands of the Dead_ - _-As recounted by a Free Woman Calliope Holt”_


	15. A Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back half of S3 AU

She leaned against the kitchen island and watched his back. He worked stiffly, crashing pots and utensils a little louder than usual in the sink.

“You okay? You seem upset about something.”

He continued rinsing out the large saucepan in his hands, ignoring her.

“ _Crane_.”

He banged the dishes around another moment before shutting the water off and grabbing a towel. “I do not wish to burden you with trivialities.”

“Partners, remember? We do that thing with sharing burdens. Right?”

“Lieutenant.” He finally turned around to face her, but not before slapping the dish towel on the counter. “Your recovery is of the utmost significance. You do not need to look after me. God knows you’ve done enough of that to last many lifetimes.” 

Abbie stepped forward, closing most of the distance between them, and slipped her hand into his. It was clammy.

“I’m not broken. I’m _not_ fragile.” She looked up and searched his face. “You need me, I’m here.”

She watched him close his eyes and draw in a deep breath, unable to help the thundering of her heartbeat, loud in her ears, as he closed his other hand around hers.

Long seconds slid by.

“ _Hey._ Whatever it is, we figure it out together.”

He pulled their joined hands up to the center of his chest and opened his eyes again, gazing down at her with a raw, deep sadness.

“My application for citizenship has been denied.”

It was hard to hold his gaze as her own eyes grew hot. 

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” His voice was so low, so melancholy, it constricted her chest like a physical thing. “Know that under no circumstances do I wish to leave you, but I am running out of–”

“Shut _up._ I can’t–I need you to stay with me.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his knuckles.

“ _Abbie.”_

She blinked away the tears forming on her lashes. She was too close to keep eye contact, anyway.

“I am not going to lose you, Crane,” she whispered fiercely. “Not now. And sure as hell not to some bureaucratic bullshit.”

He kissed her forehead, just below her hairline. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than before, and without looking, she knew he was trying as hard as she was to keep tears from spilling down his cheeks. “It wouldn’t do for a federal agent to live with an illegal alien, would it?”

And just like that, she knew exactly what words to say.

And knew they were the _right_ words to say.

So she pulled back so she could see his face and tried to force something like a smile onto her face. He watched her intently, a twinge of confusion creasing his brow. There was no going back from this.

“But no one would think twice about a federal agent living with her husband, would they?”

His jaw went slack. “Lieutenant–” 

She disengaged one of her hands from the knot they’d formed with his and reached up to press a finger to his lips before he could get anything else out.

“Marry me.”


	16. The Keeper and the Mermaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU

It’s known to happen to those of his profession, who spend years and years in the dark, in the solitude and the cold, hanging onto the bare edge of the world with only the radio and books for company. He’s perhaps a little young to lose his mind in this fashion, but there’s no other explanation for the beautiful woman he finds washed ashore on the rocks, tangled in seaweed, and warm–so, so warm–despite the frigid water. 

“I’ve been cursed,” she says, as he pulls the kelp from her limbs, trying very hard not to violate her modesty. “For wanting something I shouldn’t.”

“What? Cursed?” He does his best to move her long, heavy braids to cover her, having a difficult time remembering his medical training, uncertain and flustered in the presence of a naked woman. Why didn’t he wear his coat out today?

“It’s okay.” She stills his hands. “My people … we don’t mind. But can you help me up? I’m not quite sure what to do with my legs.”

He glances down at the strong muscles of her thighs, the turn of her slim calves, the small, perfect feet. There are no scars. No callouses. 

“Your legs …?”

“Are new.” She reaches up to turn his face back to look at her, gently caressing his cheek. “I’m–or, I was a mermaid. Ichabod Crane.”

He wants to scramble backwards, tales of sirens and sprites and water nymphs and Melusine straining his already overwhelmed thoughts further. But he doesn’t, taking on the mantle of logic. “No, I believe you are a hallucination. As that is the only way you would know my name.”

“No,” she laughs, a sound that is inhumanly melodic. “I know your name because you are the reason I am cursed. You’re that thing I wanted that I shouldn’t.”

He swallows, now even less convinced of her actual existence and his own sanity. “I see. What do I call you?”

“Grace.”

(By the end of the second day, she is so delighted with her legs that she refuses to wear pants that might constrict them–only a sweater and his extra pair of boots. As he watches her bounce along the rocks with a perfect balance despite the much-too-large galoshes on her feet, he knows that, one way or another, whatever she is, she will be the death of him.)

(She is. And it is glorious.)


	17. Shifted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-S3 AU w/ S3 finale roles reversed. As they ought to have been. 
> 
> The shade is strong in this one. >:)

She was approached in Stop & Shop, trying very, very hard not to break down in front of the bakery case full of donuts.

Three months, and her well of grief had no apparent bottom.

“He liked them.”

Abbie turned at the unfamiliar voice, suddenly on high alert, muscles tensed to fight.

The woman at her side looked down and met Abbie’s hard gaze with a lopsided smirk and a proffered badge. “Agent Mills, I’m Agent Diana Malhotra. Homeland Security.”

Abbie didn’t soften, unimpressed by the other federal officer’s friendly demeanor. “My dad warned me you’d be coming eventually. Didn’t think it’d be so soon.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t wait any longer. The Third Tribulation is beginning.”

* * *

After she climbed into the SUV, Agent Malhotra slumped against the seat next to Abbie.

“Sorry to freak you out. Protocol, public place. All that shit.”

“You don’t need to keep apologizing. I know the ropes.”

There was that smirk again. “You’ll get briefed when we get to the plane. _We_ have fifteen minutes to the airport, though, without prying eyes and official whatever. You need to know something important, off the record.”

She paused, and Abbie felt she needed to fill the space. “Fifteen minutes. Okay.”

Surprisingly, Agent Malhotra reached out to clasp her hand. “My daughter and I are Ichabod Crane’s only living relatives. Long, ugly, bloody story short, his younger brother–my great, great, great, etc. grandfather–went off to India in 1790. I can tell you all about it later. The important thing is that neither of us have been ‘sparked.’“

Abbie closed her eyes to process. They knew about her, they knew about Crane. Wouldn’t he have been amazed to know he had living family? But this …

“What does that mean?”

“The passing of the Witness line is foolproof, 100% reliable. It means–can I call you Abbie? I know you’re technically going to be my boss in, like thirteen minutes, but … given everything …”

She nodded. “Yeah. Yes, please.”

“Your Crane isn’t dead.”

* * *

Abbie was damn good at heading a secret federal agency.

She and Agent Malhotra–Diana–developed a bond that was a lot _like_ the Witness bond she had had with Crane, but of a different shade, a different texture. She trusted the woman in ways she never could Crane, or her sister, or Corbin, or anyone. There were no secrets between them, no grudges or grievances. No past, no _feelings._ And no judgment.

She and Abbie were, in some ways, near doubles. Diana’s move out of a tough past had been enlistment in the military; she hadn’t known her father, who’d left her mother and a young Diana soon after they had immigrated to the US. She was a natural leader, quick to learn, a crack shot with any weapon and any language, who rose up the ranks of Army Intelligence before being plucked to work at DHS. They just _got_ one another.

But her partnership also made clear to Abbie exactly what the nature of her bond with Crane was all about.

It hadn’t been everything she’d kept telling herself over and over–even after he was gone–that it was.

It had been more.

* * *

The seven-headed beast shimmered into dust.

“You’d be a great Witness, Di,” Abbie panted, throwing her bloody sword to the floor.

Diana dropped hers, too. “But I’m not. I’ll take the title of ‘Dragonslayer,’ though.”

“That’s so _Game of Thrones.”_

“Fuck that show. They can’t even put more than one brown- _ish_ person on screen at a time.”

“They wouldn’t let us be the heroes, would they? Assholes. Good thing that’s just fantasy, huh?”

“Damn right.”

* * *

It was Diana’s blood tie to Crane that Abbie, Jenny, and Macey Irving were able to use to crack open the dimension where the Box had trapped him.

It was Diana who had to actually _cross_ into that strange dimension to get Crane out.

And it was Diana who Abbie could hear yelling, just loud enough to pierce through the buzzing in her ears, when she and Crane– _Crane, Crane, Crane_ –cleared the gateway.

“–all of us now. So get a fucking move on! My kid better get a little cousin before too long. Free babysitting!”

* * *

Her feet were off the ground.

She clawed at his shoulders, trying to grip him harder, not caring what he thought of her lips pressed against his neck.

“Abbie _,”_ he breathed against her hair. “ _Abbie._ ”

He was home.

So was she.


End file.
